Motorola, Inc. and Netopia, Inc. have signed a definitive merger agreement, under which Motorola will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Netopia common stock for $7.00 per share in cash. The transaction has a total equity value of approximately $208 million on a fully-diluted basis. As of September 30, 2006, Netopia had approximately $28 million of net cash.

Netopia is a leader in providing carrier-class broadband customer premise equipment (CPE), remote management software, and broadband services to telecom operators worldwide.

Research and Markets has released the new report 2006 Global Broadband Powerlines - Moving into Home Management 3rd Edition. In the report, a key highlight is that there are over 170,000 BPL subscribers worldwide in 2006. Impressive or not? Also from the report, around 100 commercial BPL trials are currently taking place worldwide, with about a third of these under way in the United States, and the large majority originating in Europe. While I do expect the numbers to increase, I am interested to see how BPL fares against competing technologies such as HomePNA.

Optibase, Ltd. announced that it is providing its IPTV solution to Hungarian Internet service provider, TVnet. Upgrading its current internet and telephony services, TvNet has added IPTV to its basket of services, to commence in Budapest in December.

TELUS has signed a six-year agreement to apply Widevine Technologies's video content protection technology across a number of platforms.

TELUS offers a range of video products including downloadable multimedia content, cellular-based TELUS mobile TV and TELUS TV, an IPTV broadcast and video-on-demand service. Widevine will secure the delivery and consumption of content via set top boxes and PCs used by TELUS customers accessing these services. TELUS will also assess using the technology in its wireless devices such as cell phones.

QoSmetrics announced the availability of two new hardware probes, the NetWarrior 200 (NW200) and NetWarrior 101 (NW101). The products are designed to offer carrier-grade, cost-effective and scalable end-to-end network performance visibility and assurance for service providers offering Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP).

IPTV still has some growing up to do from CED Magazine
Brian Santo, CED Magazine Senior Editor, shares his thoughts on the TelcoTV conference.

Sources: Moto's Shopping for IPTV Middleware from Light Reading
Who might they be looking to buy?

Research and Markets has released the addition of China Telecom Industry Monthly Review Sept 2006 to their offering.

China telecom industry monthly review is an information service that provides monthly reports targeted at overseas enterprises and investment institutions interested in China's market.

5th – 9th March 2007
Crowne Plaza, Vienna, Austria

Learn How Telecoms Operators Maintain Core Revenue Streams While Developing Innovative Business Models And Compelling Offers For New Products And Services

ARPU is a key performance indicator for mobile operators and an important measurement for investors and analysts. In an increasingly competitive market, price wars and new service launches have driven down ARPUs for operators around the world.

Pixelmetrix introduced VISUALmpegPRO, integrating its VISUALmpeg Elementary Stream and Video Quality analyzers, to boost consistency in data verification.

The VISUALmpegPRO allows for visual inspection of all aspects of MPEG video coding right from bit rate to macroblock motion vector analysis.

Teknovus' TK3715 complies with China Telecom's EPON specifications and is the industry's first production-ready EPON ONU that is fully compatible with China Telecom. It is based on Teknovus' widely deployed TK3713, offering a single-chip IPTV ready ONU with industry leading power, size and cost.

According to Infonetics Research, the sales of IPTV equipment will skyrocket from $371 million to $6.8 billion—between 2005 and 2009.

Whether you're looking for an end-to-end IPTV solution or a combination of several products, this list will help you find the companies to help.

We understand this list is not exhaustive but look to fill it out over time and with your support.

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Market Opportunities for Content Producers and Service Providers
28-30 November, 2006
Radisson Edwardian Marlborough Hotel, London, UK

Globally the challenges for the telephone companies implementing IP/broadband video services are substantial. Delivering video services requires integrating hardware and software along with content and excellent customer service. This conference presents the dynamism involved in the IP video space. IP video has the potential to open new horizons for Telcos. Operator's revenue per customer could increase significantly by deploying an IPTV or triple-play package. Furthermore TVoD during its wobbly early beginnings wasn't a pretty picture. Traditional digital transports services were awash with confusing configurations, jerky video, and fluctuating sound. Now however TVoD is a stable, reliable mean of a content delivery.

Espial IPTV unveiled the Evo Future-Proof Framework (FPF) to provide the ability to customize, extend and evolve the Evo IPTV Service Platform.

The Evo Future-Proof Framework is a set of tools, methodologies, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that ensure truly open, portable, integrated and service-rich offerings.

Verizon has introduced FiOS TV to consumers in Lexington and West Newbury, which make up more than 10,000 households.

Verizon also has TV franchises in the Massachusetts communities of Marion, Mattapoisett, Rochester and Tyngsborough, and is currently negotiating with some 30 other communities in the state to obtain additional franchises. For more information on the Verizon franchise process in the state, visit www.verizon.com/ma.

mPhase Technologies will work with BitBand to integrate its Video On Demand technology with the mPhase TV+ System video entertainment middleware offer it markets to broadband operators as an integrated system to support interactive IPTV services.

The combined features will provide the network operators that mPhase serves with the ability to scale their Video On Demand offers as consumers discover the convenience of ordering entertainment on demand.